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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27190519">Maybe I'm A Lion</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Synchron/pseuds/Synchron'>Synchron</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Punchy's Bizarre Adventures [4]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Devil May Cry</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Canon-Typical Behavior, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Gen, Red Grave sucks</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-07 04:16:10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,192</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27190519</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Synchron/pseuds/Synchron</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>A vaguely out of context snippet where after a Very Bad and Reckless decision on Punchy’s part, she’s found out cold in an alley by Vergil, thanks to Grendel and Yamato’s “persuasions”.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Vergil (Devil May Cry)/Original Female Character(s)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Punchy's Bizarre Adventures [4]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1644661</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Maybe I'm A Lion</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>And the "cross-post everything to AO3 saga" continues, I am SO sorry to those of you who've subscribed to me and are getting a slew of emails for things you don't care about jhsdf. But I think having these posted here will benefit me in the long run. 😭</p><p>The original notes on the tumblr post:</p><p>So I got to thinking about my lion boy again, and I couldn’t help writing up this tiny little out of context snippet from Punchy’s narrative. 😌👉👈 Ever since commissioning a full design for him, I’ve been itching to do something with it, and now I wanna try and work in a full fledged physical appearance by him at some point. Mags did such a damn good job with Grendel, and it’d be a damn shame not to use it!!!!! 😤😤</p><p>In the meantime, here is this, and I hope y’all like it?!?! As an aside, I listened to <b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTk2v417ANU">this</a></b> on repeat as I wrote this, so there’s some mood music for you if you’re into that sort of thing. This particular version of Maybe I’m A Lion is their collective theme. The original is strictly Grendel’s lol. ALSO IF YOU HAVEN’T ALREADY PLEASE LOOK AT <b><a href="https://synchronmurmurs.tumblr.com/post/618158964911341568/justmaghookit-finally-im-able-to-post-this">MY HANDSOME LION BOY</a></b> I LOVE IT SO MUCH JFDGUHIDUIU</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He feels it in the brisk air as he walks the streets of the city in the late afternoon. It isn’t the static charge of <em>her</em>, that humidity, that calm before a veritable storm. No, he’s felt her thunder before; reflecting off Yamato to disperse harmlessly into the ground; leaving webbing trails that tingle and burn against his skin when she sinks her teeth into his shoulder, often hard enough to draw blood - but this is something… <em>more</em>. It’s undefined, likely due to its distance, but its presence is larger. Sharper. More lethal and commanding. The air of a predator.<b><br/>
</b></p><p>The familiar pride of a lion.</p><p>In his hand, Yamato quivers, restless and unsettled, the tempered steel singing a tuneless melody even within its sheath. But not out of fear. She reacts to the presence not as an enemy, not even as an ally, but as an <em>equal</em>. If Vergil is to be completely honest with himself, he doesn’t like that collusion between them. He often feels them communicating to one another in that abstract way they do; in vague projected thoughts and fleeting feelings. But they <em>do</em> do it. And he doesn’t like it.</p><p>He likes it even less that Yamato pulls him towards the presence. Towards Grendel. He cannot describe the feeling, even in spite of his extensive vocabulary, but it isn’t a physical feeling, so much as a strong mental urge. The more he resists, the more pressure Yamato adds, and so it’s with gritted jaw and furrowed brow that he rounds the corner and begins to make his way toward the beacon that Grendel is making himself to be.</p><p>Vergil watches the streets out of his peripherals as he goes by, noting the litany of trash on the side of the road, the steel grates on all the windows he passes by, and the men in suits with those identifying pins upon their lapels that catch the setting sunlight to wink knowingly at him. He’s heading deeper into their territory - a place in which <em>his kind</em>, under an agreed contract, does not belong - but Yamato continues to pull, and so Vergil continues to walk with his expression set, shoulders back, and his head held high.</p><p>The air of another kind of predator.</p><p>Grendel’s presence is getting larger now, stronger, and more potent. More cutting. There is a flash of light in the gap between two buildings, and not half a second afterwards, he hears, he <em>feels</em> the heavy bass of his thunder. It arcs out from within that gap, splitting the darkening sky into fragments of red that bleed into the dusk. Vergil hears a set of frantic footfalls, muffled voices babbling incoherent words, and then a group of youths are vacating the alley in haste, their clothes singed, and their expressions visibly pale.</p><p><em>Ridiculous</em>, Vergil thinks, <em>have you nothing better to do than scare the young and impressionable?</em></p><p>And then to his most trusted partner:</p><p>
  <em>Is this enough? Is this what you wanted me to see?</em>
</p><p>At his side, Yamato begins to tremble again, a quiet but no less vehement rattling. Even the sageo rustles, flaring out in a theoretical breeze until Vergil continues moving, nonchalantly stepping into the shadowed alley. It is silent in there, with only a residual current of electricity that course up the steel pipes and crackles between the bars bolted to dirty windows. But there is the smell of blood too, thick and coppery. Vergil casts his eyes about, muscles tensing, body a coiled spring as his eyes adjust to the darkness.</p><p>Despite his readiness, he flinches when he feels a surge of energy, carrying a vastly distinctive sensation that churns the air and tingles his skin with its passive static. With a heavy, billowing gust, light erupts from the very end of the alley, and though it has no tangible form, there is no mistaking the scale of the creature that now presides against the back wall. Vergil sees first the angry reddened slits of Grendel’s eyes, and then around it, its ethereal body begins to form; an indigo muzzle currently wrinkled, pulled back to reveal curved teeth; a mane that puffs with a charged static in the colours of a setting sun; wings that stretch open in a display of threat; and paws that end in wicked claws. A low, guttural snarl permeates the air, a deep and resonant rumble that jostles the trash so carelessly thrown away.</p><p>This is Vergil’s first time seeing Grendel in his full form, and though he is nothing but a projection, an apparition, the hostility is not to be understated. He hovers in the air on all fours, body curved protectively around a huddled mass on the floor just under him - Myra. He realises then that the aroma of blood comes from her, currently out cold, seated in a filthy alley and swathed in rags. He can hear her heartbeat at this distance, and he finds some measure of comfort in the fact that she’s alive.</p><p>Just severely wounded.</p><p>By who? There aren’t many in the city who can subdue her, and she is even further from the type to <em>be</em> subdued.</p><p>“What happened.”</p><p>It isn’t a question so much as a demand. Pale grey eyes flicker back up to the lion hovering over his charge, holding the gaze of a being as ancient as his own father. (Vergil would be lying if he said he wasn’t moved by that notion.) Slowly, gradually, the drawn back lips fall back over pointed fangs. Grendel’s muzzle begins to relax, and though it’s nebulous at best, there is a slight softening of his eyes. Tension is drained from Grendel’s body as his muscles relax. Scaled wings tuck back against his body, and his pointed tail swishes idly.</p><p>And like Yamato’s persuasion, a multitude of abstract thoughts invade his mind; words that are sensed rather than heard.</p><p>
  <em>Miller.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Betrayal.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Murder.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Swarm.</em>
</p><p>It’s a fractured, fragmented set of ideas at best, but given the current civil unrest within Red Grave’s world of organised crime, Vergil pieces it together easily enough.</p><p>He clicks his tongue, annoyed. “Idiot.”</p><p>But he steps further into the ever darkening alley, the shadows drawing and stretching longer the lower the sun sinks into the horizon. A faint shield surrounds Myra, crackling with electricity even though her eyes are closed and her head is drooped; even though she’s unconscious, Grendel is always awake, always watchful, and always ready to protect his master. The field dissipates the closer Vergil gets to it, and when he kneels before her, two fingers pressing gently against her throat to feel a gentle (weak) pulse, the lion hovering above vanishes as wisps of light, sinking back into the demonic gauntlets upon her fists; irrefutable proof that despite Myra’s overt misgivings, Grendel trusts him.</p><p>Idly, Vergil makes a note to bring that up to her later. For the moment, he thinks it best to get her off the streets; the epicenter of Red Grave’s criminal world is no place for the murderer of a family head. There is only one safe bastion in the entire city for her now.</p><p>Devil May Cry.</p>
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